


By the Way

by drea_rev



Series: Los Angeles, 2000 [1]
Category: Parasite Eve
Genre: F/F, Friendship, Funny, Humor, Light-Hearted, Los Angeles, Neighbors, Nineties, The 90s, early 2000s
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-19 23:59:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9466478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drea_rev/pseuds/drea_rev
Summary: Aya just moved into her first apartment after coming to Los Angeles and made her first friend. Hilarity ensues. This will likely be a slow-burn fic based on people's relationships but since there might be the survival horror element of the game here and there (there is none in this episode) I marked it teen. Title from the RHCP song





	

The phone rang just as Aya was sitting at her table in the morning, having a cup of tea and glancing out the window at LA’s drivers zooming past, and thinking about how the sunlight was somehow different here.

“Aya,” came a nasal, heartsick plea on the other end of the line. “It’s me. Charley. Remember? That night at the opera we had?”

“Thank you for calling Domino’s Pizza,” Aya said in a gruff, deep monotone without thinking. “This is Cody, may I take your order?”

“Aya, _please_.”

“I’m sorry, sir? Did you say extra cheese?”

How did that two-bit mayor’s son have her brand-new California number? She glanced around the still-empty-feeling apartment, at the boxes she had been at the office too late last night to unpack. Her life in California was at the stage where she hadn’t even been to a real supermarket yet, or for that matter, pooped more than a few times at her new apartment. The toilet at MIST headquarters was more of a homely environment than her actual home, and Charley Underhill, a continent across from her, was still talking about the one date they’d had at the opera? Before the world damn near ended?

“Aya, I know you do voices on the phone. I _know_. Please just _listen_ —what happened at the opera house—it made me think about my _life_ , Aya, my _choices_ , how it could all go up in flames in a _second_ , how I _almost_ _died_ , and then it got me thinking about that evening dress you wore--”

What did Charley Underhill do for a living? Aya didn’t remember asking. He’d picked her up and taken her to the opera. If mayor’s son was his only occupation, he probably pooped at his own house all the time. It was probably an awesome toilet too. Cream-colored bath tissue. She could see it in her head.

“--maybe we were meant to _be_ , Aya? Maybe we were meant to go through that near-death experience _together_?”

“Sir…I...think you may have the wrong number,” Aya said. “This is Cody, at Domino’s. It looks like you’re…looking for your girlfriend?”

“Aya, don’t give me that.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Aya had noticed something very troubling. Ennie, dressed to the nines for college, had opened her front door and was peeking in, blinking, and hot blood filled Aya’s cheeks.

“Sorry...sir,” it was good that the nervous tone worked in favor for Cody’s character, “I can’t help you with...love.” Aya’s eyes met Ennie’s, and wow, it had been nice, having a friend. A nice friend. A normal friend. A friend who was now two raised eyebrows and a slowly closed door away from being just a neighbor. “Only pizza. And we do a combo with--with two large Cokes. Would you be interested in that?”

The door shut, but Ennie didn't leave, she just walked quietly across to Aya.

Charley warbled, “It’s meant to be, Aya! We were _meant_ to--”

The phone was taken from Aya’s hand, and before Aya/Cody could say anything else, Ennie said to Charley, in an accent Aya had no idea how to place, “Hello? This is Shania, Cody’s manager. Is there a problem here, sir?”

Aya’s hand flew to her face as Ennie put the call on speakerphone. There was dead silence on the other end of the line.

“This is...really a Domino’s Pizza?” said a voice like a Disney mouse.

“I don’t know what else you were expecting, sir. Taco Bell?” Ennie continued, deadpan, leaning on folded arms into the table.

“I—please excuse me,” Charley stammered, “I have the wrong number. Bye.”

_Click._

Ennie’s brown eyes went from the phone to Aya, who was debating the wisdom of walking into her bedroom and crawling under the bed.

“Boy troubles?”

“Just--you—did you need another ride to school? Just—let’s go. Come on, I’ll take you,” it was easier to grab her jacket off the back of her chair and walk out the same door Ennie walked into. Because Aya had once again forgotten to lock it the previous night.

 

 

“Somehow,” Ennie said, looking at her fake eyelashes in a compact mirror, utterly oblivious to the sights of LA flying by outside her passenger-side window, “I find that hard to believe.”

“It was one night at the opera. I don’t know what his problem is.”

“Oh, that’s not the strange part,” Ennie said, moving onto her eyebrows, which she filled with deft brush strokes. “That’s generally been my experience with the males. They will latch onto a feather in a slight breeze of attention and discover it means you have proposed marriage to them. With a look. But you don’t know it yet.”

“Ennie,” Aya wheezed, “’ _the males_ ’...”

The compact snapped shut. “What I find hard to believe is you got deployed, came back, got recruited into the NYPD, went into the FBI, and still have to do all this. Why didn’t you just tell him to fuck off?”

Aya sighed. “I don’t know. They _were_ expensive opera tickets...”

“Aya, he’s the mayor’s son. The New York City mayor’s son. There’s a difference. Oh, and by the way, do you mind hanging around? I’m going to get you the catalog so you can look at some courses, just in case.”

Aya frowned, weaving between the mess of cars as UCLA’s pretty architecture came into view. “I don’t think there’s even a place to park, Vivienne.”

There was a pregnant pause.

“Who’s Vivienne?”

Aya turned to see her neighbor staring at her coldly, hand on the car door handle. She turned back to the steering wheel and worked the grip with her nails.

Ennie said icily, “Because I gave you good advice I’m ‘Vivienne’ now?”

“It’s a...pretty...name,” Aya said, pulling the stick to rest on P. “I...don’t know why you don’t just go by it. It’s such a pretty name. If...if I had a daughter, I’d name her either...Maya...or Vivienne.”

Ennie’s stare didn’t break. Neither did the silence.

“OK, look, nobody’s ever walked... _in_ on me doing my phone thing, you know?” Aya’s voice was now very high and shaky. “I—I sort of never thought about how weird it would be to explain to someone. Like, when I was a kid—I did prank calls with my friend—it grew from that--practicing accents off VHS tapes of random stuff, in front of the mirror—I—I’d try to copy people I saw on the street—” Aya wished she had put makeup on today, to hide the flush that crept in again, and she knew it had, because she now had to look at it in the rearview, “I used to get on party lines and...pretend I was...a 47-year old escaped convict named Harold Buttes— _you don’t need all of this_.”

The grin that broke across Ennie’s face was officially Aya’s first sunrise that she’d ever seen in LA. She opened the door, finally, and got out, and slammed it shut behind her. And Aya idled for a moment, hoping she wouldn’t hear a honk from someone’s BMW behind her.

She didn’t remember what she was idling for, until a dark-skinned, perfectly manicured hand pushed something like a very thick magazine into the crack between the passenger-side window and the top of the door. Aya glanced at it as it fell onto the seat—UCLA General Catalog 1999-2001, the title read, the cover splashed with a collage of art and photos—and looked up to see a beautiful girl waving as she dashed up the pale beige stairs.

 


End file.
